I. Field
The following description relates generally to wireless communication systems and more particularly to conveying unicast and broadcast information at substantially the same time.
II. Background
Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication. For example, voice, data, video, and so forth can be provided through wireless communication systems. A typical wireless communication system, or network, can provide multiple users access to one or more shared resources. For instance, a system may use a variety of multiple access techniques such as Frequency Division Multiplexing (FDM), Time Division Multiplexing (TDM), Code Division Multiplexing (CDM), Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM), and others.
Wireless communication networks are commonly utilized to communicate information regardless of where a user is located (inside or outside a structure) and whether a user is stationary or moving (e.g., in a vehicle, walking, and so forth). Generally, wireless communication networks are established through a mobile device communicating with a base station or access point. The access point covers a geographic range or cell and, as the mobile device is operated, the mobile device can be moved in and out of these geographic cells.
A network can also be constructed utilizing solely peer-to-peer devices without utilizing access points or the network can include both access points (infrastructure mode) and peer-to-peer devices. These types of networks are sometimes referred to as ad hoc networks or peer-to-peer networks. Ad hoc networks can be self-configuring whereby when a mobile device (or access point) receives communication from another mobile device, the other mobile device is added to the network. As mobile devices leave the area, they are dynamically removed from the network. Thus, the topography of the network can be constantly changing.
Typically, in peer-to-peer networks, a transmitting node (e.g., mobile device, access point) transmits some information to its target receiver (unicast) and some information to other receivers (broadcast). The unicast information may include information such as extent of buffer build-up, Quality of Service (QoS) being requested, and so forth. The broadcast information can convey access priority (or equivalent metric such as marginal utility), an indication of the power level at which the node would interfere, and so on. Furthermore, a pilot may be sent for coherent demodulation. The setup includes common shared resources (symbols and tones) that nodes use for the signaling. Pure energy based signaling and corresponding non-coherent detection can result in false alarms at the intended receiver when there are collisions in resource selection between competing links and/or improper setting of power on the requests since it can be used for multiple purposes (e.g., to close the link to the target receiver and also to convey extent of interference to other receivers in the vicinity). Thus, there exists a need to overcome the aforementioned as well as other problems.